FEWKEs] RELIGION (i7 



on thf ir arms and rattles on their feet. The women also came with similar rattles, but 

 naked, it they were maids, and not painted; if married, wearing only breechcloths. 

 They approaching dancing, and singing to the sound of the shells, and as they ap- 

 proached the cacique he saluted them with the drum. Having entered the temple, 

 they vomited, putting a small stick into their throat, in order to show the idol that 

 they had nothing evil in their stomach. They seated themselves like tailors and 

 prayed with a low voice. Then there approached many women bearing baskets of 

 cakes on their heads and many roses, flowers, and fragrant herbs. They formed 

 a circle as they prayed and began to chant something like an old ballad in praise of 

 the God. All rose to respond at the close of the ballad; they changed their tone and 

 sang another song in praise of the cacique, after which they offered the bread to the 

 idol, kneeling. The priests took the gift, blessed, and divided it; and so the feast 

 ended, but the recipients of the bread preserved it all the year and held that house 

 unfortunate and liable to many dangers which was without it. 



Benzoai's account" is essentially^ tlie same as that of Gomara. 



Charlevoix's description of this ceremony differs from the accounts 

 of some other- authors, for he speaks of it as a solemn procession in 

 honor of the gods.* His account likewise follows in general that of Go- 

 mara. Peter ^Martyr reports that among- their gods they had one 

 which they adored in the form of a female, who had a herald on each 

 side, acting as a messenger to convey' her orders to subordinate gods 

 who caused rain to fall and crops to grow. The female idol he calls 

 variously Attabeira, Mamona, Guaearapita, Liella, and Guimazoa, 

 probabh' different names of an earth goddess or earth mother.'' 



A comparative study of this festival shows that it is a ceremony per- 

 formed for the growth of crops. The idol is thought to represent the 

 earth goddess and the heralds are supposed to be her messengers, as 

 stated b}^ Peter Martyr. The presentation of offerings is a prayer by 

 signs, the devotees making known their desires by food offerings. The 

 return of the gifts to the donors represents symbolically the answer to 

 the prayers, and the dire effects supposed to follow if they were not 

 preserved by the recipients, the distress that would follow absence of 

 reverence for them. 



The act of vomiting, common in all primitive ceremonies, has proba- 

 bly the same meaning in these rites as elsewhere, namely, self-puritica- 

 tion. The sprinkling of the image with powder, probably tobacco, or 

 cassava flour, mentioned in some accounts, is regarded as a form of 

 prayer for food, and the songs in praise of the god and the cacique 

 are intimately connected with ancestor worship. The images of the 

 gods were .sometimes washed with the juice of the yucca, a symbolic 

 act, apparently a prayer for increase of this food plant. 



"History of the New World by Giolamo Benzoni, 1572, translated by Rear Admiral W. H. Smyth, 

 Hakluyt Soc, 1857. He adds: "They worshiped two wooden figures as the gods of abundance." 



'^Pictures of this procession are given by Charlevoix and Pieard, but these representations (plates 

 IX, X) appear to be more or less fanciful, being made from the descriptions of Gomara and others. 



f Mr. H. Ling Roth (,p. 265) refers to an old parchment describing Indian witchcraft, where the queen 

 of the tribe in Santo Domingo, having drunk the juice of the herb, zamiaca, and attired in a garment 

 made of its fibre, consulted the spirits of her ancestors. She evidently personated the earth goddess, 

 Zuimaco. 



